Tide of Fate
by Sperare
Summary: Clark's POV of Reckoning.


Blood covered her like some grotesque sort of blanket. The angle of her body was wrong, and the glass lying under her did nothing to take away from that illusion.

Clark knew that there were other people there, but his mind had blocked them out. All he could see was her lying before him on the pavement, blood marring her beautiful features. It was all so wrong, and, yet, so very real.

He could feel the tears stinging at his eyes as he reached down to touch her, terrified that he might break her more. When his hands finally connected with her face, he was horrified at the blood that seemed to completely coat her skin.

"Clark!" a voice shouted, but in his state of horror he barely heard it, let alone had the clarity of mind to place it. "C'mere, c'mon," the voice said, and Clark could hear the distress in their tone.

"Lana? Lana!" he heared someone say, and it took him a moment to realize that it was himself.

Hands were on him, trying to pull him away from Lana, and he was fighting, because Lana _needed_ him. Because Lana couldn't be dead, not just when they were finally going to live happily ever after—not when Clark was finally going to have what he'd always dreamed of. No, she couldn't be dead, she just _couldn't_.

"No, no," the voice said again, and it finally clicked in his mind that it was his father.

He allowed his father to pull him away, more out of a long-drilled habit to only use human strength, to let people pretend to be as strong as him. But his father turned him away from Lana, and all he could see now was the blood on his hands, almost like he killed her.

And maybe he did.

His secret killed her.

"There is nothing you could have done. Nothing," he heard his father tell him, but he didn't really believe it. If he hadn't died in the first place then her life wouldn't have had to be exchanged for his. And, maybe, if he hadn't told her his secret then she wouldn't have been the one who died.

He heard sirens in the distance, and his father pulled him further and further away from Lana. His clarity was coming back to him now, and the shock began to ebb, but with its departure came the terrible realization of what had just happened.

"She's not breathing!" he heard someone shout, and after that he just shut himself off from the scene around him. He already knew she wasn't breathing, already knew that she was dead. He didn't need some emergency worker to tell him that.

He didn't need an outside source to tell him that his life's just been completely shattered.

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Times seemed to have slowed down for Clark. That seemed rather strange to him, as all his memories of the previous few hours were blurred. He vaguely remembered colors, faces sirens, and standing on the side of the road with his father, but other than that it was all one big colorful blur.

He couldn't say that he regretted that.

Lana was officially pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. There was nothing that they could have done, anyway. Clark knew that, but hearing that she'd been killed instantly because of a snapped neck didn't help his state of mind any. He tried to console himself by thinking that she hadn't suffered, but all he could see was the blood and the bruises, and he wasn't sure how that was possible.

And even if she hadn't suffered, he was, having seen her like that.

He didn't know what to do. Just a few hours ago he'd had the world; he'd seen his future stretched out before him. And then, in a twist of fate too cruel to follow, he'd had it all ripped away.

He was up off the couch where he'd been seated in the loft before he even knew he'd moved. It was just as much of a shock to find that he suddenly had the key to the caves in his hand. But, somehow, it seemed right. If there was anyone who would be able to help—who would understand that it was her destiny to live—it would be Jor-el. After all, he might not have been good for much else, but he was big on destiny.

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"How could you take her away from me!" Clark screamed into the nothingness of the fortress. He could feel tears staining his cheeks, but he was just too emotionally tired to care. Guilt and pain had weighed him down, and he was beginning to feel that he couldn't take any more.

"Human life is fragile, my son. You knew a life would be exchanged for yours."

Jor-el sounded so apathetic, and it infuriated Clark that he just didn't care. He looked at human lives as most people viewed those of dogs. Clark just wanted to shake him and make him _understand_ how important she was to him, how much he'd need her.

"Don't make her pay for my mistakes!" he shouted. Guilt washed over him again and he added, "If I hadn't told her the truth about me, she'd still be alive!" He forced himself to calm down as he begged, "You have to let me fix it."

"Your powers on earth may seem extraordinary, Kal-El, but we are not gods."

And he thought Clark didn't know that. Clark knew all too well what it was like to be helpless to save someone. He knew was it was like to have no control over someone's destiny, even though he was so sure it was meant to be intertwined with his own.

"This is not her destiny! And you know that!"

He didn't know what else to say to Jor-el to make him understand. He couldn't loose Lana, and Jor-el had to _know_ that.

"There is one trial you have yet to experience. But, you must heed my warning. The tide of fate is impossible to stop. Even if you are able to alter one course of events, the universe will find a balance. There is only one crystal."

Clark watched, feeling spell-bound, as a length of crystal moved out of a group of ice pillars near him, and came to hover in the air in front of him, spinning slowly. He barely heard Jor-el's words of warning, and he certainly didn't care to heed them. All that mattered to him right then was Lana. If something else happened, he'd stop it, because he'd be ready for it.

"Decide carefully."

There was no choice for him. "I have to save her," he said simply, not caring if his father understood or not.

He reached out and grabbed the crystal, thoughts of repercussions never crossing his mind.

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The last place that he'd expected to find himself was the loft. But, having found himself there, he was convinced for one whole wonderful minute that this was simply a dream. And then he felt the weight in his hand.

The lump of coal.

It wasn't a dream. And if it wasn't a dream that meant...

"I brought gloves and a scarf like you said."

Lana. Lana was alive.

He got up off his coach slowly, almost afraid to believe that it was true. It couldn't be possible. After all, he'd seen her dead, covered in blood, and completely broken on the road. And, yet, here she was before him, alive as ever. If it hadn't been for the lump of coal he would have been certain it was simply a bad case of deja vu.

"You're here," he found himself saying as he infolded her into his arms. Just her warmth alone was enough to make him cry with joy. She was so warm, so _alive_, and so very not at all like the broken body on the road.

He heard her laugh. "Of course I'm here, Clark."

He didn't bother to think about how strange this would look to her. It didn't matter that she didn't know that she was dead just a few seconds ago, because Clark knew, and he was terribly relieved to have her before him. Just the _smell_ of her. Unable to help himself, he leaned in and smelt her hair. The scent of the herbal essence shampoo that she'd used only that morning met his senses. Since he'd thought he'd never have smelt that again, he was filled with relief and happiness from just a smell.

"I'm just not sure a mystery date's exactly what our relationship needs right now."

Right, because since Lana wasn't dead, they were still dating. Lana wasn't dead. He could repeat that over and over in his head for the rest of his life, but it was still just barely sinking in.

"So...Where are you taking me?" She sounded so hopeful, and slightly curious.

At the sound, Clark felt himself freeze. He couldn't tell her his secret all over again, because it was what got her killed in the first place. But he knew he had to say something, because he'd asked her to come do something with him, and he didn't want her mad, not when he'd just gotten her back...

"I just thought we could spend the day together."

It seemed like a plausible thing to say, and so very liberal too. Maybe if he was lucky then perhaps she'd suggest something to do, something that she'd always wanted to do that he could do with her.

"Oh, that part I kind of figured, but it was the, quote: 'Day that I'll never forget' that I was a little curious about."

He was completely lost. He didn't have a plan for them to do anything, and he couldn't take her to the fortress, because he couldn't stand seeing her killed again. Her life was too important for him to waste, even for his happiness...and possibly hers.

His secret wasn't worth it.

"Right…um…well..." He really didn't know what to say, and he turned towards the loft window as he tried to stall for time. "I thought we could go for a drive, maybe…up to the lake..." He saw her smile start to fade, and it killed him, but he knew he couldn't be selfish here. He had to protect her, no matter what the cost. "and…um, but you know, with this cold snap we're having, the bridges are probably iced over, so we should just stay here," he finished, turning to look at her. What he saw there absolutely killed him inside.

"Don't you think I know by now when you're lying?" she said, her tone clipped and annoyed. Then it dropped and grew tired, and that hurt him most of all. "Just…oh...Just say something. Anything."

"You know, it wasn't a big deal," he said, trying to smile when it just felt so wrong on his face. "Really, I mean, trust me, it w-"

"Clark. You know that goes both ways," she replied with a small frown.

He just wanted to scream out and tell her that he didn't want to lie, that he wasn't trying to hurt her, but that he just didn't want to see her dead. But there was nothing that he could do, short of revealing his secret again, and he knew that. That didn't make it hurt any less, though.

"Lana, I-," he tried to say.

"Don't. Unless it's the truth."

The anger in her voice hurt so much. He wasn't trying to hurt her, but he didn't have any other options. For her own safety he had to tell another lie. He just wished that he could tell her that he wasn't lying to hurt her, but only to protect her.

"Clark, as much as I love you, I can't do this anymore."

He could feel what was coming, and he was desperate to stop it, even if he knew it might be the right thing. "Lana, you don't understand. If anything ever happened to you-," he choked out, desperate to make her see. There had to be a way to just make her_ see_.

"Like what? What could be worse than losing the person that you love?"

Nothing, he thought to himself. Absolutely nothing, and that was exactly the driving force behind his actions.

"Nothing," he admitted to her, though she didn't know the irony of her own words.

"I need a break," she told him finally, laying a hand on his arm.

Clark knew better: This wasn't a _break_, but the beginning of a _breakup_. Her hand slipped off his arm as she turned to go, and he knew as certainly as that touch had just left, that he was loosing her too. This was the defining moment; he could either tell her, risk her death again, or risk loosing her for himself forever.

"From me?" he asked slowly, though he already knew the answer.

"No," she replied sadly. "From us."

The thought of not having her with him anymore was devastating, but the thought of her being dead hurt worse. In all good conscience, he knew the choice he had to make.

He had to let her go.

As he watched her walk down the stairs of his loft, he knew that he had just lost her, whether or not it ended at that moment, or weeks down the road.

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The election party was bright and cheery and such a contrast to what Clark was feeling at the moment. It felt like his world had come crashing down around him twice in the span of less than twenty-four hours, and he was running on empty.

Then there were the nerves that something would happen to Lana, because now he was finally starting to remember exactly what Jor-el had said. And the thing about not being able to stop the tide of fate—it was making him more than a little nervous.

He felt so out of place, just standing here when some deadly catastrophe could be headed his way, but until it happened he couldn't stop it. When he saw his mom and dad coming towards him he was slightly relieved, if only because it would save him from the business of looking so awkward.

"Everything all right, Clark?" his dad asked him.

Clark forced himself to put on a bright face as he said, "Yeah," and gave him a hug. "Good luck tonight, Dad," he added, really meaning it.

"Thanks," he father replied.

Clark dropped his smile as soon as his parents moved away. And as if he hadn't had enough of an emotional rollercoaster already, he spotted Lana and Chloe entering. Clark was half relieved and half heartbroken to see them enter. It hurt to see Lana, but it also meant that if she was there than she wasn't dead. He was so tangled up in his emotions that he didn't even really see how apprehensive Lana looked, or perhaps he was simply willingly blind to it.

"You made it," he finally said, finding his voice.

It just twisted the knife deeper when Lana said something inaudible to Chloe, and then walked passed him, glancing at him but not speaking. "I saved your life!" he wanted to scream at her, because he just so badly, for just one time, wanted her to know that it was he who saved her. He just wanted to see that adoration that he knew would come if he told her that he was the one who saved her—that brought her back from the dead.

But the image in his mind of her broken body lying still on the blacktop stopped him.

"Hi," Chloe said as she came over to him.

"Hi, how's everything going?"

"It's good; I haven't left her since I saw you."

Their conversation was interrupted by the TV, which, even though they couldn't fully here it, was making its message very clear.

"...contested...County senate race. Jonathan Kent has just been elected..."

Clark, genuinely happy for his father, began to clap as he watched his parents smile and kiss. And then he remembered something: It should have been Lois that announced that. Where was Lois?

"Hey, something's not…the same..." he muttered to himself. "Lois?"

And then the fact hit him that Jor-el said he would pay with the life of _a_ loved one. Reality began to sink in that it may not have been just Lana who was in danger. After all, she wasn't the only person in his life that he loved.

He turned away from the party, trying desperately to convince himself that she'd just fallen asleep or something, and that everything was going to be just fine. But as he ascended the stairs to her apartment, he found that he had a feeling that he was only thinking wistfully.

When he opened the door to find water running over the floor, he got the feeling that his instincts were correct. He had to find Lois.

"Lois!"

And then he saw her. He felt like his heat stopped when he saw her lying in that water, the toaster nearby. And suddenly his situation had become a lot more complicated than he'd originally thought.

He quickly reached down and picked her up, and when he saw the arc of electricity run through the water he realized he wasn't a second too soon. It seemed very appropriate that the lights died immediately after that, because it seemed like the tone of his world was darkening by the second.

Everyone he loved was in danger, and it was because of _him_.

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It didn't take long to get Lois downstairs or to get an ambulance. Still, everything felt so surreal, and Clark had to admit that he was scared. He'd just saved Lois, but he didn't think he could cheat forever whatever invisible force was going to try to take the life of a loved one.

Surprisingly, it was nice to have Lois's usual banter, and it was even nicer to see her up and talking, meaning that she had come around. If nothing else, it got his mind off things.

"Do I really need an audience? Everyone back to the party, there's lots of chocolate cake, nine cases of Merlot..." she rambled as she was carried out on a gurney.

"Lois, you were out for a while, you should have someone take a look at you," he suggested, but he was enjoying her comments none the less.

"Do you really need to haul me off to the hospital just for committing a serious party felony?"

Clark grinned after her, trying not to think how different his life would have been without her.

And when Chloe came running up to him, looking frantic, he realized that he had better be considering that about someone else now. "Clark! Clark, I've looked everywhere and I can't find Lana," she told him, her face revealing that she was as frantic as he.

He looked slowly down at his watch, afraid of what he might see.

It was 11:01

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He had never felt so terrified in his life as when he ran to the scene of the previous accident. The saying "race against time" had never been more true, and he was so scared. What if he didn't get there in time?

He saw Lana's car just as it was about to shoot in front of the bus. He didn't even really know what happened after that, other than that he suddenly found himself behind the bus, pulling it backward and away from Lana.

Seeing Lana's car go safely passed it to stop on the side of the road was the only thing that began to quell the mad beating of his heart. She was safe. He'd cheated fate again. But the question that had been plaguing him since he'd saved Lois was still beating in his head: "For how much longer can you cheat fate? You can only stop so many accidents."

It's painful to see Lex, so clearly drunk, climb out of the car and got to Lana's side. "Okay...I'm okay," he heard her say from where he was hidden in the bushes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean what happened back there, I was just, I was just-" Lex started to say.

Clark didn't want to hear anymore. He took off running before anything else reached his ears.

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Clark didn't remember much of the rest of the party, simply because he was too preoccupied with watching everyone so closely. His mind turned over possible ways that he could stop this, but, so far, short of keeping everyone safe and out of trouble, he'd found nothing that he could do.

It was almost a relief when his mother had told them they could head home. She added that his father had left earlier and that it would be just them. Clark didn't think to realize that his father not being there meant that he had to be _somewhere_ and that perhaps he might be in trouble.

In Clark's mind there was no point in worrying about his father. His father was the strongest man he knew, and as far as Clark was concerned, pretty much invincible. He never even considered that his father might be the one to take the payment for his life.

The thought never even crossed his mind until they pulled up in front of the barn, and he saw his dad there, staggering. His first thought was that his dad had been shot, or something similar, but then he realized that his walk wasn't conducive to such an injury.

"What's your Dad doing out here?" his mom asked with a chuckle, as if she just thought her husband adorably absurd. "What...?"

"Dad," he heard himself say.

Clark could see that his mom was smiling. Then his dad collapsed. She wasn't smiling anymore.

They broke off running towards him, neither of them sure exactly what had happened. "Jonathan? Wha…wh…Jonathan!" his said, stumbling over her words in shock.

"Dad? Dad!"

Panic was eating at his thoughts. This wasn't supposed to happen. This couldn't be happening to his _dad_.

He and his mom picked his dad up, and Clark could feel him swaying in their arms. This wasn't right. His dad was so strong, and this was so not like him to show weakness.

"Jonathan?" he heard his mother say again.

"Dad? Let's sit him down over here, come on. Here, sit down."

They'll deal with this like a family, he thought. They'll sit down, his dad will catch his breath, and everything will be fine. There was no need to worry, or so he tried to tell himself.

They brought him over to some hay bales and set him down on them. Clark's heart nearly stopped when he saw his dad look first at his mom, and then at him, obviously trying to speak but unable to do so. And when his dad closed his eyes and dropped his head to one side, Clark felt his world shatter.

"Oh..." he heard his mother scream. "No! Jonathan!"

"Dad!" he cried, but he knew it was hopeless.

"Jonathan, no, Jonathan!" his mother cried, rubbing his dad's chest. "Jonathan!"

"Dad! Dad?" he cried again.

"No! Oh, please, not yet! No!" his mother sobbed. "Jonathan, no, Jonathan!"

Clark could feel himself crying, because, though he wasn't prepared for a lot of things, this was the thing he was prepared for least of all. This was his fault. Because Clark Kent could stop car accidents and electrocution. Clark Kent could prevent the latest meteor freak from killing anyone. Clark Kent could even stop bullets.

But not even Clark Kent could stop a heart attack and the tide of fate.

_**The End**_


End file.
